LIBRARY

The Drake Well Museum Library contains an unusually complete, and one of the largest, collections of materials pertaining to the birth of the oil industry and its subsequent development.

Approximately 3500 books include oil well supply catalogues, oil directories, handbooks, guides, prospectus of various early oil companies, oil histories, geological surveys, early city directories, county histories, bibliographies, etc.

Some 1500 periodicals from early and recent oil companies. Approximately 1000 newspapers, both bound and loose-leaf have been collected. Most have been transferred to microfilm:
Early Titusville Papers
Titusville Herald - weekly and daily
Pithole Daily Record
Petroleum Center Daily Record
Oil City Derrick
Venango Spectator, Franklin
Meadville Tribune Republicans
Bradford Newspapers
New York Tribune
Tidioute News
Pleasantville Commercial Record

Documentary Material includes letters, diaries, maps, atlases, business records, manuscripts, programs, photographs, stock certificates, currency, scrapbooks, music.

John Scheide, a Titusville businessman and world-famous book collector donated much of the documentary material.

Some other collections for which listings can be provided are:
John D. Archbold Collection
George Bissell Collection
George Brewer Papers
John J. Carter Collection
C.A. Conner Collection
Edwin Drake Papers
Alvin Drake Deming
Helen Ritts Duffield Collection
Ernest C. Miller Papers
National Transit Pipeline Company Map Collection
Pennzoil Company Collection
Quaker State Refining Company Collection
A.S. Ralston Collection
Joseph Reid Gas Engine Company Collection
Roberts Torpedo Company Collection
Wilbur H. Seifert Collections
E.V. Selden Collection
John E. Selden Collection
Walter Small Collection
Albert C. W. Smith Collection
Charles V. Stegner Collection
Ed Stralko Collection
James M. Townsend Collection
Ida M. Tarbell Collection
Merwin E. Tarr Collection
Herbert E. Varnum Collection
Edith B. Willets Collection
H.W. Williams Collection
Peter Wilson Collection
Valvoline Collection

The Drake Well photographic collection is the largest collection of pictures concerning the early development of the oil industry. The John A. Mather Collection consists of about 4400 original glass plates, ranging in size from 5" x 8" to 11" x 14", over one-third of which are stereoviews. A few of the early documentary photographers represented in the collections are A.D. Deming, Frank Robbins, Copeland & Fleming, and John Goetchius. Subjects include towns, street scenes, derricks, oil field equipment, teamsters, barges, railroads, pipelines, refineries, and storage facilities. Areas other than Titusville include Bradford, Butler, Oil City and Franklin.
A large collection of different types of lamps depicting the historic development of illumination includes the P.C. Boyle Collection.
Oil field tools and relics collected throughout the oil region.
Many artifacts in the collection are on display in the museum and on the grounds.

Civil War Related Collections
In addition to artifacts and papers directly related to the Civil War, the Drake Well Museum contains ledgers, minute books, account books, papers, and correspondence of oil companies and oil company executives from the Civil War era. These include, among others, the Fletcher, Brewer and Bissell, Chase-Locke, Drake, Farmers and Mechanics Oil and Mineral Company, L.E. Harding, Keenan, and McClintock Collections. Lt. Col. Edward A. L. Roberts, 29th New Jersey, and 84th New York founded the Roberts Torpedo Company, the papers of which are held by the museum. Purportedly invented by Roberts based on his wartime observation of exploding shells, the patented Roberts Torpedo facilitated drilling by vaporizing paraffin out of wells and opening fissures in the oil-bearing sands. The museum also contains a collection of 10,800 images, including the outstanding John A. Mather glass plate negatives, with views of workers in the oil fields during the Civil War.

Documents
• DW 79.3.93.88 E.C. Bell Collection. Handwritten account of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Bell was involved in the oil business and also was a journalist.
• DW76.12.9-.46 John Wilkes Booth. In the Ernest Miller Collection are transcriptions of thirtyone interviews with acquaintances of Booth from the oil region conducted by Louis
Mackey, a Franklin journalist, in the 1880s. Booth spent over forty days in the oil region during the summer of 1864 to inspect his $3,000 speculative investment in oil operations.
• DW79.3.87 John J. Carter Collection. Lieutenant, Co. B, 33rd New York Volunteer Infantry; Captain, 1st Veteran PCAV (1) Civil War letters and speeches from post-war period. (2) diary, 1861–1864. An Irish immigrant, Carter won the Congressional Medal of Honor for meritorious conduct at Antietam. After the war he became an oil producer in the Pennsylvania oil fields, founding Carter Oil Company, an associate of Standard Oil.
• DW97.21.3-.5 Fifty-Seventh Pennsylvania Collection (1) Twenty-two page history of the regiment written in longhand by Capt. E. A. Strouss. Included also are (2) “Record of Recruits as Examined by the Surgeon of the 57th Regt. PV at Camp Curtin, Harrisburg, October 10, 1861;” and (3) “Roll of Company K,” organized in Titusville in 1861. Library Book #355.31 McK158 GAR Titusville Post Collection. Personal War Sketches. Presented to the C.S. Chase Post No. 50, Titusville, by John L. McKinney, 1896. Large ledger book with the name of member and war record inscribed on each page. Also, Minute Book of Post 50, Titusville, 1907–1927.
• DW79.3.65 Abraham Lincoln Letter. Appoints A. W. Crawford consul at Antwerp, Belgium. Crawford expanded the market for Pennsylvania petroleum products in Europe.
• DW70.23.2 Corporal M. H. Metler Diary of service in the Civil War in a three-month Erie Regiment.
• DW79.16.126 Chase-Locke Collection contains letters from soldiers and civilians discussing the war.
• DW79.3.89 R. D. Fletcher Collection contains letters from soldiers and civilians discussing the war.
• DW71.43.1-.25 Keenan Collection contains letters from soldiers and civilians discussing the war.
• DW97.4.1-.27 Richards Collection contains letters from soldiers and civilians discussing the war.
• DW 1.1-212 Peter Wilson Collection contains letters from soldiers and civilians discussing the war.
• D 34.1 Jonathan Watson Collection contains letter from Pittsburgh Sanitary Fair May 4, 1864. X75.01 Scheide Collection contains documents pertaining to the export tax placed on oil during the war.
• M1-M36 Sheet Music. Includes titles related to both the oil boom and the Civil War.
• DW2001.5 Darius Steadman Collection. Steadman was Chaplain, 105th PV, his materials includes a letter written from the hospital of Kearney’s division after the 1862 Battle of Williamsburg, VA.

Artifacts
• DW79.11.19 John Wilkes Booth Cane donated in 1942 by R. M. Smiley of Knox, whose father received the cane as a gift from Booth in 1864 during Booth’s visit to the oil fields; three photographic portraits of Booth, two of which include what appears to be the cane DW3417-3419; and a $5 bill Booth purportedly spent on lodging in Franklin.
• DW#2992 Soldiers Monument Franklin, 1868 and the dedication DW#3387
• DW79.11.251C 90 Cent Confederate Scrip from Edwin Drake’s Wallet

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